A Guardian contributer, Richard Seymour, has sparked outrage today after dismissing a British war hero’s comments on the Falklands Islands, in which he attacked Labour leadership candidate Jeremy Corbyn for planning to “surrender” to Argentine demands. Seymour slammed war veteran Simon Weston on Facebook, claiming, “If he knew anything, he’s still have his face”. Weston was horrifically burned in the Argentine attack on the RFA Sir Galahad in 1982.

Seymour, who is the author of the Lenin’s Tomb blog was responding to the article published by the Telegraph, posted by a Facebook friend of his. In the article, Weston noted of Mr Corbyn’s plans: “It is a repugnant idea. I don’t see why it should happen given that the Argentines never had the islands. They have no right to them.

“It could cause civil war again by emboldening the Argentinians. It frightens me enormously because he claims to be such a supporter of democratic freedoms while what he is suggesting throwing the Falkland islanders right to democracy out.

“I don’t ever see him winning an election because his policies and his attitudes just won’t wash with the British public.”

Seymour didn’t quite see it that way. But instead of responding to Mr Weston’s points, he wrote beneath the article: “Seriously, who gives a shit what Simon Weston thinks about anything? If he knew anything he’d still have his face.” Read more »

Far left MP George Galloway has declared the town of Bradford an “Israel free zone” on a video uploaded to YouTube today.

Mr Galloway, who has represented the town since winning a by-election there is 2012, has said Bradford should boycott Israeli goods, academics and even tourists.

In his speech he said: “We have declared Bradford an Israel free zone. We don’t want any Israeli goods. We don’t want any Israeli services. We don’t want any Israeli academics, coming to the university or the college.

“We don’t even want any Israeli tourists to come to Bradford if any of them had thought of doing so. We reject this illegal, barbarous, savage state that calls itself Israel. And you have to do the same.” Read more »

The Labour-supporting blogger Sunny Hundal has done his bit for world peace by declaring that Right-wingers are all “evil”. Obviously, it’s political hyperbole at its most silly. But this kind of rhetoric is increasingly common among Left-wingers who think that conservatives who want to reform welfare, stop the NHS from killing people or make sure kids can leave school with the ability to tie their own shoe-laces are – to use Sunny’s words – “heartless bastards.”

So if we’re going to play this game of tit-for-tat, I’d like to offer evidence that it’s the Left that’s pure evil rather than the right. Aside from hating freedom and the baby Jesus, they also commit these five mortal sins without any thought for the rest of us.

He lists the 5 reasons…Ill try and put a NZ context on them.

1. Bad stand-up comedy. Call me old-fashioned, but I always thought a comedian was a fat man in a tux who came on stage and told jokes. But Left-wingers will laugh at something not because it’s funny but because they think they’re supposed to – which been an enormous boon to the careers of “alternative” comedians like Jeremy Hardy, Josie Long, Robin Ince, Mark Thomas and Marcus Brigstocke (seriously, folks, I’ve known colonoscopies that are funnier than Marcus Brigstocke). Their acts are basically George Galloway speeches with a laughter track added and one of their favourite targets are the “fascist simpletons” who believe in God. Oddly, though, they never pick on fundamentalist Muslims. They can’t seem to see the funny side of having a fatwa put on their head. Read more »

The Respect Party MP for Bradford West, who is a longstanding supporter of Hezbollah and Hamas, had spoken in favor of the motion “Israel should withdraw immediately from the West Bank” when Eylon Aslan-Levy stood up to speak against the motion.

Two minutes into his speech, Galloway interrupted the third-year Politics, Philosophy and Economics student and asked if he was Israeli. Read more »

Given the venom with which Labour supporters attack the former PM, you’d think that when their party finally came to power in 1997, it reversed every one of her hateful policies. In fact, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown guarded the Thatcher legacy as lovingly as if she’d been a grocer’s daughter born and bred in Islington. Her successors kept the privatisation and kept at bay the trade unions.

This makes me suspicious. If Labour can live with Margaret Thatcher’s policies, what is it about her that they find so unacceptable?

When I say the left hate Margaret Thatcher I really do mean hate… it is deep seated, here are the two reasons they hate her the most. Read more »

I was on the Nation today and due to time constraints I didn’t get to slam into the liars of Kia Ora Gaza. Sean Plunket however did a fair job of trying to expose their lies.

Here is the transcript:

SEAN In the past week you’ve been asked to give again to a group called Kia Ora Gaza. They tell us they’re a group of Kiwis joining an international aid convoy to deliver humanitarian supplies to the needy of Gaza. They’ve had some media coverage in the papers and on the tele. They’ve adapted a Hank Williams song and have a cute little Kiwi cartoon on their website where they’re asking for $100,000 to fund this mercy mission. But is this really a homegrown handout for the needy of Gaza, or is there something else going on? To find out we have in the studio Roger Fowler, Team Captain of Kia Ora Gaza, good morning to you, and from the Jewish Council of New Zealand, David Zwartz, he’s in our Wellington studio

SEAN Roger Fowler I want to come to you first, is this about delivering aid, or making a political statement?

ROGER It’s definitely about delivering aid, we’re talking about millions of dollars worth of humanitarian aid which is desperately needed by the people of Gaza. We’re talking about medical equipment, educational equipment, and building equipment to try and rebuild some normality of life for the people of that desperate nation.

SEAN Alright and to do that the six of you are going to London and then driving to Gaza?

ROGER There’ll be a massive convoy Sean of about 500 vehicles, coming in three legs. One’s coming down from London and that’s the one that we’ll be joining with the people of Palestine, and there’ll be another leg coming from Dohar, and another one from Morocco, all coming towards Gaza on the same day.

Ok here we have the first lies. That 500 vehicles is a massive convoy to save the embattled Palestinians. They are trying to make out that Israel is starving the people out of their homes through a blockade. It is a lie that “aid” is even needed.

SEAN Can you not buy the supplies, the medicines and the building supplies you want on Cairo and simply send them over the border to Gaza, why the need for this massive road trip?

ROGER Well this is a big international effort once and for all to bring much needed aid to the people of Gaza.

SEAN But as I’ve just explained to you there’s a far logistically simpler and one would presume more economically sustainable way to do that?

ROGER There is but the need to bring this humanitarian aid is because there is a siege on Gaza, which is inflicted by their neighbours, and we have seen a need to break that siege. So yes there is a physical component to breaking that siege and bringing that aid.

SEAN So are you actually going to physically drive through the lines and sort of confront the Israeli Security Forces?

ROGER Well the Israelis have indicated that they’ve eased the blockade and indicated that it’s easy to get stuff through. So that will be put to the test.

So this big international aid effort is only going to deliver a sixth of the usual monthly amounts, not even half of the trucks for the first week of August….sounds like they are just trying to make a show for cameras. There is not a siege on Gaza, a siege would not allow anything through. The Israelis have made it quite clear that they will allow anything through so long as it can’t be used for war-making.

SEAN Okay, I’m going to put it to you that actually this is about politics. You and Grant Morgan who’s the person you send the money to if you want to back Kia Ora Gaza, members of the Social Workers Party people have been involved in what one would call the far reach of left politics in New Zealand for quite some time.

ROGER Sean you probably know that left leading people are often the very first to come to the aid of the underdog in New Zealand, and in fact it’s a good Kiwi tradition. We come to the side of the underdog whether it’s in sports or its social events.

SEAN So you would agree there’s a political motivation to this?

ROGER No, there are people politically involved, but there’s people from a wide selection of backgrounds come to ….

SEAN Not on the trip there isn’t?

ROGER Yes there is a wide selection of people.

SEAN Well could you just name some people who aren’t politically active on the trip? Your son perhaps?

ROGER My son has put his hand up and he’s been selected too.

SEAN Okay, politically active?

ROGER He’s involved in community work just as I am. I’m the manager of a community centre in South Auckland, have been heavily involved in community work all my life.

SEAN Part of the Resident Action Movement that stood for Council?

ROGER Yes I’ve been active in politics.

SEAN Okay, other people on the truck been involved in that movement as well?

ROGER One other one yes.

This is about politics pure and simple. They are communists and antisemitic and want nothing more than a conflict with Israeli border troops entering Gaza. they will drive up and expect to drive straight through, that isn’t going to happen, those trucks will be thourghly searched and then allowed to proceed, but this won’t be good enough for these guys, hoping to make a huge deal with some pushing and shoving with Israeli troops.

Plunket is right, why not just buy the goods in Cairo and drive from there. After all one of Gaza’s borer crossings is into Egypt and managed by Egypt. Are they too blockading and laying siege to Gaza. Of course they aren’t, they don’t want bombs flying over their borders just as much as the Israeli don’t want them over theirs.

SEAN Okay, Grant Morgan as I said the man who’s taking the money the last General Secretary of the Communist Party in New Zealand. Where does that money go and who administers it, are you a charity?

ROGER We’re in the process of setting up a charitable trust. This has all come together quite quickly and the support has been enormous and is growing.

SEAN Okay, and you would agree that the person Viva Palestinia the group you are linked up with in London, is spearheaded by George Galloway, former Labour MP, virulent anti American, a man who’s said ‘I never met a dictator I didn’t like’ and Viva Palestinia itself was investigated by the British Charities Commission last year. Two of its directors resigned and questions were asked about direct payment of money to Hamas which is of course listed as a terrorist organisation in Great Britain.

ROGER Yes, I think all those allegations were proved to be false, and yes George Galloway has been a long time campaigner against war.

ROGER Sean, we all know that there is definitely a siege and a blockage on Gaza, even the Prime Minister of the UK has come out and denounced this inhumane blockade, and demanded that it be stopped. World leaders …

SEAN No what he’s actually said and I’ve got the direct quote here. He said that Gaza couldn’t remain a prison camp, and he says progress is being made, and he made that speech in Turkey, he said progress is being made, which is unlike George Galloway, who says that at the end of the day this is all about the fall of the capitalist system, and Grant Morgan says that in some of his political writings as well.

ROGER Well actually anybody making those references to this issue, this is an issue of taking humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, they’re in desperate straits despite what our friend says, and they have been for some time. Yes there has been an easing, and all that means is there’s a few bits and pieces are getting through. 250 trucks a day is completely inadequate, they’re people in a desperate situation.

Still they lie. Calling Gaza a prison camp and saying the people are in a desperate situation.

Kia Ora Gaza are tricking through lies and obfuscations, Kiwis into believing the mass media lie that Gaza is somehow a place of squalor. If there is squalor the solution for citizens of Gaza is simple. Stop throwing missiles, bombs and bullets over the border, start to live peacefully with your neighbours like Egypt does and they will find that life gets a whole lot simpler and easier. Nothing brings prosperity like peace does. The solution is in the hands of the the citizens of Gaza, that they keep using those hands to make bombs, and voting in Hamas is no ones fault but their own.

David Zwartz, former Honorary Israeli Consul to New Zealand, gives some very sensible advice for people wanting to donate to the needy.

I would say that $100.000 given to the Pakistan Aid Relief will help one million children instead of going to the diesel fuel and trucks to drive 4,000 kilometres from London to deliver aid which can be delivered much more efficiently through the International Red Cross.

If I was National I would sack most of the department heads and the layer below them when I took office, they won't of course and some time in the future National will wonder why their departments are leaking like a proverbial sieve.